Beijing is constructing advanced and complex cyberweapons that will be capable of hijacking enemy satellites, and will far exceed the Russian cyberwar capabilities witnessed during the hostilities in Ukraine, leaked documents from the CIA accessed by the Financial Times show. The cyberweapons that PRC is manufacturing will boast hacking capabilities, allowing Chinese authorities to “seize control” of the satellites of the competitor and rival countries such as the United States. Such weapons built from cutting-edge technology are part of Beijing’s target to control data transmission of the enemy country and gain full control of its satellite systems via surveillance and hacking.
China’s aim of national military and intelligence asset expansion
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is planning to expand its national military and intelligence assets and will launch an estimated 12,992 satellites into orbit to rival SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. It intends to militarise the space domain to boost both offensive and defensive arms and technologies, which the US Chief of Space Operations, General B. Chance Saltzman, labelled as the “most challenging threat” other than the one from the Russian Federation. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, in December 2022, announced that the aerospace firm will launch project Starshield tailored for military and government agencies that will cater to the United States national security needs against its rivals.
Chinese astronauts for the upcoming Shenzhou-15 mission Zhang Lu, Fei Junlong and Deng Qingming are seen behind glass during a meeting of the press at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. Credit: AP
“Starshield leverages SpaceX’s Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts,” SpaceX’s newly posted Starshield page read.
Starshield “will offer a higher level of security than Starlink, featuring additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements.”
The explosive claims in the CIA documents emerged at a crucial time as bilateral tensions between Beijing and Washington soared over trade and the latter’s relations with the self-administered island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers its own inalienable territory under the contentious ‘One-China’ policy. The CIA-marked document was among the trove of leaked classified papers from the Pentagon that the 21-year-old US Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira uploaded on Discord server, the gamer’s chat platform launched in 2015.
Satellite image from Maxar Technologies shows construction of China’s Type 003 aircraft carrier at the Jiangnan Shipyard northeast of Shanghai, China. Credit: AP
Satellites crucial component in military operations
In what is being labelled as the most significant American intelligence disclosure yet in decades, it was found that the People’s Republic of China’s cyberweapons will strangely mimic the radiations from the enemy satellites, which, in turn, will help the Chinese authorities to malfunction or completely destroy the enemy satellites, stealthily. The CIA analysis shows that the Chinese cyberweapons would allow Beijing to “seize control of a satellite, rendering it ineffective to support communications, weapons, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.”
As it has been witnessed during the conflict in Ukraine, satellites are a crucial component used in military operations for telecommunication, global positioning systems, and in various military applications. In a sign of apparent cyberwarfare during the conflicts, shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, last year, several thousands of Ukrainian military routers were rendered ineffective from US-based Viasat which also impacted the servers in Poland, Germany and Italy. China’s goal, however, far exceeds the knocking out of the enemy satellites but to surveil the relayed signals and intercept the data.